Kidnapped
by Rockport268
Summary: Magica kidnaps Lena in an attempt to regain her magic.
1. Chapter 1

_Prompt: Dragged Away_

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Lena muttered.

"Relax! Uncle Scrooge said that Magica's still hanging around Duckburg. If anything, you're safer from her here than you are back home," Webby said.

"Not to mention that you have obtained all of her magic," added Violet. "She's powerless."

Lena wrapped her arms around herself. "Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel any better."

A twig snapped behind them, and Lena whipped around, holding up a glowing pink ball of magic, ready to strike.

"Don't hurt me!" Louie shouted, bringing up his hands to shield his face.

Lena lowered her hand and dissipated the magic with a huff. "Then don't sneak up on us!"

"It's not like I meant to!" Louie protested. "Anyway, we have about ten minutes before Uncle Scrooge wants us to meet back at the clearing."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "O….k?" she said. "And why are you telling us this?"

Louie shrugged. "Being official timekeeper is a lot less work than, you know, actually looking for things."

"Come on!" Webby shouted. "We still have section D6 to look in!"

"I still can't believe she made a grid," Louie said.

"I find it quite admirable," Violet said.

They delved deeper into the forest, Louie absorbed in his phone, Webby checking every tree trunk and rock for signs and clues, and Violet reciting something about ancient Roman mythology from one of her many books.

Lena nervously glanced around, trying to see everywhere all at once. She couldn't help but jump at every snap and crunch of the brush underfoot and the leaves and creatures rustling in the trees.

Louie's phone chimed, eliciting a startled cry from Lena.

"Time to head back," Louie said.

"Aww, man!" Webby said.

"Perhaps the other have had more luck than we have," Violet suggested.

"I hope so," Louie said. "This is getting boring."

"I suppose it's time somebody spice things up a bit," said a familiar voice behind them.

Lena didn't want to turn around. Her eyes widened with fear. "No."

Magica had appeared in a puff of pink smoke. She held up a staff topped with some sort of a polished blue stone, but her feathers were still white.

Louie fumbled with his phone and dropped it in the dirt.

Webby got a running start and flew at her with a kick. Magica grunted as she blocked it.

"Let's not make this more complicated than it needs to be, hm? I just want Lena."

"You'll never take her!" Violet shouted, readying herself for a fight.

Lena was frozen in fear.

Magica sighed. "Oh, very well, then." She took something from her pocket and threw it on the ground, and another cloud of pink smoke rose around them.

Lena coughed as the smoke tickled her throat. It filled her vision, cutting her off from her friends. "Webby?" she called. Something yanked on her leg, and she fell to the ground. That something began to pull, and Lena frantically reached out to grab onto something, anything, but the ground might as well have been made of polished glass.

"Lena?" she heard Webby call out.

"Webby!" Lena cried. "Help!"

"Lena!" More voices chimed in, but they were getting farther away.

When Lena's vision cleared, she found herself face-to-face with the forest floor. Sticks and leaves clawed at her sweater. She twisted her body around and caught a glimpse of Magica, angrily dragging her away.

"Let me go!" Lena demanded, trying to wrench herself out of Magica's grasp. But Magica's grip was too tight.

"Oh, shut up!" Magica said.

Lena started to yell.

"Don't even bother," Magica said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "They can't hear you."

"You're lying!" Lena said, and she yelled again.

"Fine! Wail all you want! Nobody's going to come find you."

Despite herself, tears prickled in Lena's eyes. "They'll come after me," she said, voice shaky. "You'll see."

Magica didn't respond, and in a few minutes, they reached her lair. Magica dragged her inside and flung her aside, closing the door tightly behind them.

"Now," she said as Lena unsteadily got to her feet and started to brush herself off. "I believe you have something of mine."

* * *

"Give. Me. My. _Magic!"_ Magica tugged at the amulet that hung around Lena's neck, but the chain wouldn't break. She'd already tried to take it off her, but the talisman refused to budge, discharging a burst of magic that sent Magica tumbling back at least 10 feet. Lena felt the amulet begin to buzz again, and suddenly it sent Magica flying once more. Lena wished she could rub at the rope burns that were forming on the back of her neck, but her hands were tied tightly behind her back.

Magica stood up and dusted herself off. "Stupid girl," she muttered, heading toward her cauldron. She rummaged through some cabinets and started throwing ingredients in, continuing to mutter to herself.

Lena took a shaky breath and concentrated, trying to focus her magic through the amulet, but she was trembling too much. She tried again, straining harder, and just about had a tenuous hold on it when Magica's cauldron blew up in her face, and the magic Lena had gathered dissipated.

Magica threw up her hands and cursed. Then she started throwing more ingredients into the cauldron, different ones this time. Lena tried to follow along, wracking her brain to remember any potion recipes that were in there. _Tail of newt, dragon's blood, mummy powder, toad's tooth, cat's tongue, wolf's-bane…_ Lena felt her knees grow weak. Without the ropes holding her up, she would have fallen to the floor. If Lena had it right...that was some nasty stuff. The sort of stuff that made you _wish_ you were dead, and Lena knew from experience.

But then the cauldron exploded again, shaking the ground so hard that pieces of rock fell from the ceiling. Magica yelled in frustration and stormed over to Lena.

"Look what you've done!" Magica punctuated her words by hitting Lena on the head with her staff. "I used to be the most powerful sorceress in the world!" She hit Lena again. "I could make grown men tremble at my feet with the magic in my little finger! Now look at me!" She hit Lena again with a _bonk_. "I can't even make a simple potion!" _Bonk._ "And it's all." _Bonk. _"Your." _Bonk. "Fault!"_ Magica hit her a few more times with the blue stone for good measure. Lena saw that it was cracked, and she wasn't sure if it was because of its repeated contact with her skull or if it had started out like that. Magica finally stopped and disappeared around the back of the pillar that Lena was tied to and sliced through the ropes that held her there. Now, Lena did fall to the ground. Magica wrenched her up by the arm and dragged her across the room.

"Good-for-nothing traitor, never should have bothered with you…" Magica muttered to herself. She took her down a hallway and stopped in front of a thick wooden door. She tossed her inside the small, dark room it hid. "You're not coming out until I get my magic back!" Magica shut the door with a loud creak and an echoing boom, leaving Lena alone in complete and utter darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

_Prompt: Poisoned_

Lena sat alone in the dark. Her hands shook around the pink amulet around her neck, the one that _should_ be helping her escape, if she could only get herself together enough to use it.

Lena wasn't sure how long she'd been in there. Minutes, hours? It almost certainly hadn't yet been a full day-she knew she hadn't slept yet. Then again, it was so dark in there that she couldn't really tell the difference between the darkness of the room and the darkness of the inside of her eyelids; for all Lena knew, she very well might have fallen asleep.

The ground shook as, presumably, another one of Magica's potions went wrong. She heard faint cursing, muffled by the thick walls that surrounded her, and instinctively flinched. Her heart raced as her mind went back to when she'd been tethered to Magica, when Scrooge had just been a name Magica cursed in her spare time, before Webby and Violet and the triplets.

There was no telling _what_ Magica would do. It had been bad enough when Magica was Lena's shadow. Magica didn't have her magic anymore, but Lena's aching head was a testament to what she could still do, however crudely.

But Magica had more than just brute strength. She'd never been above using Scrooge's family as collateral damage...and now Scrooge's family was Lena's family, too. Her thoughts began to spiral out of control. _"I just want Lena."_ That meant her friends should be ok, right? If Magica only wanted her, she wouldn't go after them…

But what if she _did?_ What if she went and hunted everyone down so she could bring them back and...then what? Threatened them? Tortured them? Cast spells on them to turn them into toads, ravens, vultures? Sent them to an alternate dimension like the Shadow Realm?

Lena was breathing so hard that she started to feel dizzy. She leaned her head back against the cool, rough wall, and forced herself to breathe slowly. But that wasn't helping, either.

Another boom shook the room, larger this time. Magica's cursing grew louder, too, and closer. Lena curled up into a ball and backed into what she hoped was the far corner of the room.

The door to Lena's cell opened with a loud groan, sending in a stream of blazing light to brilliant Lena found herself completely unable to open her eyes, and even that wasn't enough to ease the pain.

Magica roughly wrapped her hand around Lena's wrist and yanked her to her feet. "Get out here," she barked. Lena stumbled out, and Magica swung the door closed behind her.

Magica led Lena to her cauldron in the center of the main room. Lena could see a few things floating in the green-colored slop-a bit of a tail, a tooth, a purple flower. She felt sick just looking at it.

"Stand right there!" Magica said. She rummaged through the hodgepodge of magical items spilled out on the table and pulled out a wand. "I hope this old thing still works."

Magica raised the wand, and a spike of fear cut through the fog in Lena's brain. She grabbed onto her amulet as a lighting bolt of magic shot from the wand. The amulet glowed pink and sparked in a white-hot flash, sending the magic crashing into Magica, throwing her to the floor. Scowling, she stood up again and cast the spell once more, to the same effect.

Magica stood back up and shook the wand a few times, then hit it against the side of the table.

_"Work!"_ she shouted, throwing another bolt of magic at Lena. But the magic just bounced off the amulet and hurtled back into Magica, this time sending her slamming into the stone wall.

Lena tried to run. Her eyes frantically darted around, desperately trying to find the way out, but before she could, Magica marched up to her and held her tightly by the shoulder.

"Take off the amulet!"

Lena's grip around the amulet tightened. "No!"

"Take it off!"

"No!"

_"Take it off!"_

_"No!"_

Magica stormed back to the table and extracted a wooden cup from the mess. She dipped it into the cauldron and turned back to Lena. "I will ask you once more. Take. Off. My. Amulet."

Lena brought shaking fingers around the chain around her neck. She lifted it to bring it over her head, and the next thing she knew, she was sprawled out on the floor, ears ringing and seeing stars. Magica's face came into her field of vision, scowling and beak moving to say something that was probably very loud.

Before the ringing had the chance to subside, Magica grabbed her by the front of her shirt. Lena's hearing returned and Magica's voice crashed over her the same way that sound did when you broke through the surface of a busy swimming pool.

"...your little tricks!" Magica was saying. Lena was right about "loud." Magica held up the cup. A bit of the potion sloshed out of the side. It sizzled when it hit the floor, burning a tiny hole through the compacted dirt. "The potion or the amulet. Choose."

Lena was shaking all over. "I-I can't!" she said. "Please, I'm sorry! I tried, really! It wasn't me!"

"Three!"

Lena started squirming, fighting to get away. "Please, don't! I'll do anything! Please!"

"Two!"

"Please! I'll help you! I'll steal Scrooge's dime! I'll get you blueprints of the Money Bin!"

"One!"

_"Please!"_ Lena begged one last time before Magica grabbed her by the beak and held her still as she forced the potion down her throat. Lena choked and sputtered, but with Magica's hand clamped down on her nostrils, she had no choice but to allow the viscous liquid to slide down her esophagus. Her stomach roiled, and the dizzy feeling from before got so much worse that for a moment she couldn't tell which way was up.

Magica grabbed her wrist again and dragged her back into her prison. "I'll give you some time to think about what you're going to do next," she said, closing the door behind her and again leaving Lena alone in the darkness.

Lena curled up on the floor, pressing her head to the cool ground hoping that it would stop it from spinning. Her skin burned. She felt uncomfortably hot, both inside and out, and the ground beneath her rocked back and forth like a ship in a storm. She wanted to take off her sweater, but she couldn't bring herself to move.

Lena didn't know how long she lay like that before she fell into a restless sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

_Prompt: "Stay With Me"_

Lena was awakened by a bright light pouring into the room. Through squinting eyes and a hand held up to shield herself from that light, she could just about make out Magica's silhouette in the doorframe.

Magica said nothing as she walked over to Lena. She reached out towards the amulet, but it sparked with a small bolt of defensive magic at the slightest touch of her fingers.

"Argh!" Magica shouted in frustration. She pointed an accusing finger at Lena. "This is _your_ fault!"

Lena looked at her blearily.

_"You_ did this! _You_ stole my amulet! _You_ set it against me!" She grabbed Lena's arm and pulled her to her feet. Lena's knees buckled, but Magica held her up with a strength that Lena had never seen before. "That amulet draws its power from _you._ Once you're all out, I'll pluck it from your scrawny neck like a grape." Magica tossed her back on the ground like a rag doll.

Lena lay still where she landed.

* * *

She was falling, falling down an endless void, but somehow, she was not worried. It was too dark below her to see where she was going, and it was too dark above her to see where she'd come from. The walls were lined with bricks, almost like she was falling down a well.

Her limbs felt small, but her hands and feet felt big, and her fingers and toes felt stuck together, like she'd gotten glue on them and needed to pull them apart. But no matter how much she moved them, they still felt stuck together. She looked down at them and was startled to find that they were...long. And green. And webbed. And had little knobs on the ends.

Lena tried to scream, but instead, it came out as a _ribbit,_ her throat inflating at _least_ ten times its size under her chin, which was, simply put, _horrifying._ Panic rose in her chest. The air changed, and suddenly the ground felt a _lot_ closer than it had been. Lena flailed her sticky limbs, desperately trying to slow her fall, but it was no use. The ground finally came into view, and Lena shut her eyes and braced for impact…

Only to find herself being shaken violently by the shoulders.

Magica yelled in frustration. She pulled at the amulet, yanking Lena forward and digging the chain into Lena's neck. Lena fell face-first on the ground, choking and gagging. Magica kicked her in the side once for good measure before leaving, muttering something to herself that Lena didn't bother trying to pay attention to.

Lena held her arms around her stomach and tried to remember how to breathe.

* * *

Lena awoke to a loud _zap!_ buzz by her ear. She jerked away as Magica stepped into the room, holding another wand. Magica sent out another bolt of magic, and Lena scrambled away, escaping with only a few singed feathers on her cheek.

"Hold still!" Magica said. She pointed the wand toward Lena again.

Lena ducked into the corner, shielding her head with her arms.

Suddenly, a hand came down on her shoulder and wrenched her around. "I said _hold still!"_

Lena couldn't do anything more than shake as Magica pointed the wand at her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut just moments before a small explosion knocked the wind out of her and sent her tumbling to the ground.

"You wretched girl!"

Lena lifted her head with a groan to see Magica holding her hand in pain. The wand had fallen to the floor.

Magica turned around and marched angrily out of the room. Lena's head fell heavily back to the ground. She closed her eyes and wished that the pain would go away.

* * *

Lena was falling again, and this time, panic gripped her by the throat. But then, she swooped upwards and realized she was soaring. She flew up, up, up, high over Duckburg. She could see the Money Bin, and Funzos, and the pier, and the beach, and the amphitheater. She rose higher and higher until the only thing she could see on the ground was McDuck Manor, perched high atop its tall mountain. She sailed through the air and touched the clouds, fluffy and soft and cool. She saw the horizon stretch out around her over two black, glossy wings. Then she let herself fall back, revelling in the feeling of the air rush through her feathers as she plunged toward the earth…

...and found herself being unceremoniously dumped on the dirt floor of her prison. Her neck tingled, and in the dim light, she could just about make out Magica's silhouette retreating through the doorway.

* * *

Lena lay on the ground, curled tightly in on herself. Her back hurt where she'd been pushed and dropped on the floor. Her stomach hurt where she'd been kicked. Her arms and shoulders hurt where they'd been grabbed and pulled. Her neck was raw, having been subjected to pulling and chafing and spells gone wrong for the last...however long Lena had been there. Her head ached, and her chest ached, and she barely had the strength to roll over.

And then Magica was there, wrapping her hands around Lena's neck. The bandages wrapped around her right hand scratched at the burns and scrapes painted on her neck.

"You're not even _real,"_ Magica said. "You're nothing but a _shadow._ You don't belong in this world. Nobody will miss you when you're gone."

Lena barely heard her. It was getting harder and harder to breathe through her constricted throat. She reached up to try to pry Magica's fingers away, but she couldn't seem to find them. Panic rose in her chest. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, _she couldn't breathe._ The world around her began to dim.

"Just a little more…" Magica murmured to herself. Then her face changed, but Lena's brain had grown too sluggish to even start wondering why. A sharp burst of magic buzzed out of the amulet. Magica cursed under her breath as she released Lena from her grip. Lena slid to the floor and allowed herself to be overtaken by the darkness.

* * *

Lena was surrounded by green. A green fog, or maybe some sort of green paint, smeared over the canvas around her. The green slowly faded away, and now it was pink. Pink everywhere, charged with energy. The energy buzzed and hummed and popped. Lena could feel it vibrate around her. The sounds grew louder and the energy stronger. Buzzes and popping turned into crashes and bangs. The world began to shake. Pink turned to purple, then to snowy static, before finally dissolving into the brown gloom of the small room in Magica's lair. But the nose didn't go away, and the world kept shaking. Lena wasn't sure if the world was ending or what. She supposed it wouldn't be too bad if the world _was _ending; just about anything would be better than this.

Magica came tearing into the room, hair a mess and her dress full of tears and holes. Lena's vision swam, her eyes refusing to focus. Time seemed to slow as Magica ran to Lena and dove for the amulet. Lena's vision filled with a burst of bright white light.

That light slowly faded away. Magica was gone. Lena's ears rang. Another figure ran into the room. It frantically looked around, eyes lingering on somewhere to its left before finally landing on her. It ran over and dropped to its knees, sliding the last few feet to close the gap between them.

_Scrooge._

His beak moved, but Lena couldn't hear anything but the ringing in her ears. He put his hand on her shoulder, but Lena barely felt it.

"Stay with me, lassie; you're going to be all right." His words started to become audible, like someone was slowly raising the volume of a TV.

Lena felt dizzy with relief.

"We've got to get you back to the plane."

The world tilted violently. Lena's vision started to tunnel.

"Stay with me, Lena. Stay with me..."

Scrooge's voice faded away as Lena sank into a peaceful, dreamless, painless sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

_Prompt: Recovery_

_Soft._

Soft and cozy and _warm._

Lena snuggled deeper into the soft blankets, so fluffy they felt like they went on forever.

"Come on, Lena. Open your eyes for me."

But Lena didn't _want_ to. She was tired. She felt like it was six in the morning on a school day after a week of staying up too late to finish homework. She squeezed her eyes tighter and burrowed under the blankets.

Those blankets were lifted from her face. "I know you can hear me, lass. Just for a few minutes, then you can go back to sleep."

But that would ruin _everything._ If she woke up now, she'd have to start all over again to get back to sleep, and by that point, it wasn't even worth it. Besides, Violet was no doubt ready to bombard her with whatever new knowledge from the book she had her beak buried in this week, and Webby was probably ready to rope them into some crazy adventure, and just five more min-

Oh.

Oh _no._

Magica.

Terror gripped her as she remembered what was happening. Lena curled in on herself. She couldn't breathe; Magica was choking her again. Lena clawed at her throat, desperate to tear her hands away.

Lena's hands were gently pulled away from her neck. "Careful, now. You don't want to rip up the bandages."

That...was _not_ Magica De Spell.

Lena cautiously cracked her eyes open. She was in a big bed in an even bigger room. Scraps of sunlight peeked through drawn curtains.

"That's it, lassie."

Lena turned her head to find Scrooge McDuck sitting on a chair next to the bed. He looked tired.

"You're safe now. Magica cannae get to ye here."

Lena was pretty sure she'd never been in this room before, but everything about it screamed McDuck Manor. Now that she thought about it, Lena vaguely remembered the plane ride back. A kind hand placed protectively on her shoulder, hushed admonishments to "quit messing about, Launchpad, and get us back to Duckburg in one piece!"

Lena's hand drifted toward the familiar weight that...should have been...on her chest...

"It's right here," Scrooge said, gesturing to where the amulet sat on the night table. "I know enough about magic to know that you don't want it on you when you're in that shape."

Lena stared at it. "How'd you get it off?"

"That thing's smarter than you'd think," said Scrooge. "It could tell that I wasn't trying to hurt you."

Lena laughed weakly. "Aunt Magica would be so _mad."_

Scrooge chuckled. "That she would, lass."

Lena's eyelids began to slip shut.

"Get some rest, Lena," she heard Scrooge say as the world dropped away.

* * *

Lena next awoke to a set of arms squeezing her around the middle.

"I was quite worried," Violet said when Lena opened her eyes.

Violet hopped off of the bed. "You need your rest," she said by way of explanation.

"Wait!" Lena blurted out.

Violet turned around.

"Stay for a little bit," Lena said. "Please."

Violet smiled and got back on the bed.

Lena rested much easier knowing that her sister was right beside her.

* * *

Lena grimaced as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees buckled when her feet reached the floor, and she had to steady herself against a wave of dizziness. Her limbs were stiff from unuse. She painfully made her way towards the bathroom, which was thankfully only two rooms down.

Once she finished, she took a look at herself in the mirror. She could see angry purple bruises mottled underneath her feathers. The bandages around her neck were getting a bit grimy. They felt too close, like, like-

Before Lena could think about what she was doing, she tore the bandages away. Her neck was red, all scraped up like a skinned knee. There were two purple bruises pressed into the front, and she could see more leading to the back. Lena gingerly felt around her neck, feeling the raised scratches that marked it.

Her mind drifted back a few days. Lena could almost feel the chunks of the potion forcing their way down her throat, all slimy and hard, like eating jelly-covered fettuccine and rocks.

Once Lena remembered that feeling, she couldn't get it out of her mind. It was stuck in her mouth, forcing her to relive it over and over again. Bile rose up in her throat, and she barely made it to the toilet before she was emptying the meager contents of her stomach. Her muscles contracted painfully, trying to purge her body of the potion that had largely left her system. When they finally stopped, Lena sank to the floor and tried to catch her breath.

"Lena!" Webby called.

"I'm," Lena swallowed, "I'm in the bathroom!"

Lena heard some footsteps. Then the door opened.

"You startled me," she said. She frowned upon seeing Lena on the floor. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," Lena said. "I think so."

Webby offered her hand. Lena took it, and Webby pulled her to her feet.

"You need new bandages on your neck," Webby said.

Lena couldn't help but let her dread leak onto her face. "Do we have to?"

"Well, yeah," Webby said. She looked at Lena's neck thoughtfully. "Is there anything we can do to make it better?"

"I don't know," said Lena, looking at it again in the mirror. "Maybe make them a little looser?"

The girls spent the next half hour experimenting-tight bandages, loose bandages, softer bandages, stiffer bandages. Finally, they found a combination that seemed to work, and Webby doodled a picture of herself, Lena, and Violet all standing under a rainbow on them. Not that it really mattered, because Lena couldn't see it unless she was looking in the mirror, but it still brightened her day.

* * *

Lena was running through corridors that seemed to stretch on forever. Something was chasing her. It was close. She desperately looked over her shoulder, but she couldn't see anything. A raven cawed in the distance; something about its cry didn't fit in the narrow hallways, like the sound belonged in a field, or a big ballroom. It made Lena almost feel dizzy. She drifted to close to one side as she ran, scraping up her arm and her shoulder, but she didn't slow down. She couldn't.

Something whispered right next to her ear. Lena swatted at it. The sound disappeared for just a moment before it came back. Lena swatted again, but it wouldn't stay away. She tried twice more before clapping her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The raven crowed again, and the next thing Lena knew, she'd tripped over her own feet and was tumbling down the passageway at about the same speed she'd been running.

She didn't know if it was better or worse.

Lena made it back to her feet and kept on running. She wasn't sure how she'd made it this long without dropping from exhaustion.

Lena felt something come up behind her. Paralyzed with fear, she couldn't bring herself to look back, but she could somehow see a pair of jagged, black claws reaching for her throat. Lena pressed forward, trying desperately to avoid the inevitable, and just when those hands were about to wrap themselves around her neck...

Lena opened her eyes to find herself laying in her big, luxurious bed in McDuck Manor.

The only light came from the moon and stars hanging in the sky outside of her window. The clock said that it was almost three in the morning. She drew the blankets closer and tried to convince herself that there wasn't anything lurking in the shadows.

* * *

"Do you think it's going to scar?"

It was now a week since Lena had been rescued from Magica's clutches. Mrs. Beakley had ordered her out of bed, and Lena had stopped in the middle of getting dressed to inspect her neck. Mrs. Beakley had agreed to let her wait a few hours before putting fresh bandages on. To allow it to breathe.

"It's not very likely," Mrs. Beakley said, making up the bed. "I could give you some lotion for it if you're worried, but you'll have to wait a while longer to use it."

Lena kept looking at her neck. The bruises had begun to fade, but the scrapes had scabbed over, leaving her neck looking like it had gone through a cheese grater.

"Maybe," she said. She tore herself away from the mirror to put her sweater on.

"Lena! Are you ready yet?" Webby yelled from the hallway. Lena couldn't stifle the smile that threatened to spread across her beak.

"Coming!" she yelled back. She ran a brush through her hair and rushed out of the room to join her friends.

"Quiet games only! No adventuring!" Mrs. Beakley called after them.

* * *

"Eat foam, rebel scum!"

"Technically, they aren't rebels, since they haven't actually _rebelled_ against anything-"

"Shut up, Huey!"

Lena ducked behind a huge, person-sized vase. She wielded her foam-dart gun close, ready to fire. The door to the living room opened and Lena pulled the trigger with half a dozen rapid-fire _clicks._

"Whoops! Sorry, Mrs. B!" she called out as she ran toward the stairs. Mrs. Beakley frowned disapprovingly as she pulled foam darts from her face, which meant that this was the _best_ kind of game.

Lena was still laughing as she ran up the stairs...and right into Dewey and onto the floor.

"I've got you right where I want you," he said, holding up his dart gun. He cocked it and took aim. The world seemed to slow down as the dart gun gave a buzzing click and a green foam dart flew towards her. The next thing she knew, she was curled into fetal position, her head pressed to her knees, desperately trying to shield herself.

"All I did was shoot at her with a _dart_ gun! That's the whole game! And I _missed!"_ Dewey was saying.

"Well, obviously you did something _wrong!"_ Huey shot back.

Someone knelt down next to her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Lena? Are you all right?"

But Lena couldn't respond. She had to get out, she had to get out, she had to get out, but she couldn't seem to _move._

"Lena?"

"Take a deep breath," Violet said. "You're safe. Everything's ok."

Lena closed her eyes and focused on breathing. Slowly, her heart rate slowed to "just did some exercise" instead of "the world is about to end," and her panic began to subside. She slowly lifted her head.

"I'm...ok," Lena said. "Everything's fine." She laughed nervously. "I was just, uh, getting a little too much into character. Hey, a new episode of _Ottoman Empire_ starts in five minutes; who wants to go watch that?"

"Ooooh! Oooooh! I do!" Dewey said as Lena and Violet exchanged worried glances. He dropped his dart gun and ran down the stairs. "Last one there has to get the Pep!"

Huey looked at the trio of girls sitting on the floor. Webby gave him a nod, and he nodded back and followed his brother down the stairs.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Webby asked.

"Of course! I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be?" Lena said, voice cracking.

"Should I list the reasons alphabetically or chronologically?" Violet asked.

Lena had to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at her. Instead, she said, "I'm fine. Really."

"It's ok to not be ok," Webby said. Her voice was kind and gentle, and there was no trace of judgement in it, even though Lena had ruined their game.

Tears sprang to Lena's eyes. She nodded. "I know," she whispered.

"You don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want to, but we're here for you," Webby said.

"No matter what you need, or when, we'll come running," Violet said with a grin.

Lena smiled and pulled her two best friends into a hug. "You guys are the best."

"Not as great as you," Webby said. "Now let's go watch some _Ottoman Empire!"_

The girls headed down the stairs arm-in-arm.

"There is _no _way I'm getting the Pep."

"Of course not. We'll get Dewey to. It's his fault that we had to cut our Ultimate Foam-Dart Gun Rematch short."

"Not to mention that it was his idea for one person to retrieve the Pep for all of us."

"That's a good point."


End file.
